My dark-brown eyes
When they ask you what you're like.
My dear dark brown eyes.
They tell me you appear the way you do from the fusion of my Mama’s and Baba’s genes. Their eyes dark like a calm night with dancing lights of fireflies. I’ve been trying to look for those fireflies inside of you too, a spark of some kind, to finally be able to tell you that you’re beautiful. I’ve looked for answers in mirrors, and google and from the lady who carefully brushed my eyelashes and said “the dark mascara enhances the glint in your eyes.” So what if all the mirrors break, and the internet goes down and the mascara washes out?
To be painted dark-brown is to be painted black tea or dark chocolate or a bark of a tree. To be painted dark-brown is to have brown limbal rings around the iris as if to draw a boundary to where the honey in your eye ends and where the milk begins. To be painted dark-brown means to be able to see all else that I call beautiful. And If I’ve read my poetry books right, like a mother recognizes her child, beauty recognizes beauty. So when all the mirrors break and the internet shuts down and the mascara runs out, the answer was already there, you were already beautiful by all that you could see. It’s not the matter of looking at you, but looking through you.
It’s a night sky you’re carrying, and everybody loves how things get to shine in the darkness. The neighbor’s window flickering lights, a Suzuki down there with golden headlights, that lady’s sequined dress, the moon that announces Eid, and New Year's fireworks, and a constellation of stars you don’t know the name of, and a fire outside your tent, and a moth circling around the heat lamp. Things shine, but they shine differently at night. And aren’t you that night I speak about, my dark-brown eyes?
People say a lot about the night. Scary, where you get lost and robbed, cold, hidden. But I have not met a single person yet, who hasn’t called the night, beautiful!
*****************
Reflection questions for you my reader.
I used the “night” as a metaphor for the color of my eyes. What is a metaphor you would use for yours?
Have you written a little love note to your eyes? Would love to read if you let me! Drop me a line at elfiecreative12@gmail.com
Lots of love!